If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry | 40 great quotes about marriage - Books Books Previous slide Next slide 2 of 41 View All Skip Ad "If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry" Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), short story writer and author of the plays The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard (above, a photograph from June 1901). Gallery compiled by Martin Chilton Credit: Rex Features © Telegraph Media Group Limited 2016 Your support makes a big difference In order to bring you award-winning content and investigative journalism from your favourite writers, we rely on revenue generated by advertising. Please consider supporting us by turning off your ad blocker. Just a couple of clicks will make a big difference. Thank you. If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry... - Quote Conversation A bit about Anton Chekhov ... Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, short story writer, and playwright. He was born in Taganrog, southern Russia, on 29 January 1860 [O.S.

17 January], and died of tuberculosis at the health spa of Badenweiler, Germany, on 15 July 1904 [O.S. 2 July]. His brief playwriting career produced four classics of the repertoire, while his best short stories are regarded as masterpieces by many writers and critics. Chekhov continued to practise as a doctor throughout his life: "Medicine is my lawful wife," he once said, "and literature is my mistress". These people bookmarked this quote: Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter by Robert Bly | The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor Poem: "Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter" by Robert Bly, from Silence in the Snowy Fields. © Wesleyan University Press. Reprinted with permission. Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted. The only things moving are swirls of snow. As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron. There is a privacy I love in this snowy night. Driving around, I will waste more time.

Literary and Historical Notes: It's the birthday of the 25th president of the United States, William McKinley, born in Niles, Ohio (1843). McKinley began the trust-busting era and led the U.S into the Spanish-American War, which brought the Spanish colonies of the Philippines and Puerto Rico under American control. He served two terms, being reelected in 1900, but he was shot on September 6, 1901 by anarchist Leon F. Czolgosz while at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He died from the wounds eight days later. McKinley's portrait appeared on the five hundred dollar bill from 1928 to 1946.

He said, "Let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not in conflict; and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war." He also said, "That's all a man can hope for during his lifetimeto set an exampleand when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history." It's the birthday of novelist, short-story writer, and poet, Virgil Suarez born in Havana, Cuba (1962). He's the author of over fifteen books, including his first novel, Latin Jazz (1989) and the poetry collection, Landscapes and Dreams (2003). He's well known for compiling several anthologies of Cuban and Latin American writers. His father worked as a cutter in a garment factory. They left Cuba in 1970, first fleeing to Spain, and then finally to Los Angeles. He says, "I wrote to remember, and to put things in order. The life of an exile is chaos." It's the birthday of writer and revolutionary Thomas Paine , born in Thetford, England (1737).

He's best known for writing Common Sense (1776), the pamphlet that convinced many Americans, including George Washington, to fight for independence from England. The original title Paine came up with for the pamphlet was Plain Truth, and he also is credited with proposing the name "United States of America" for the new nation. Paine was fired twice in four years from his job as a tax collector in England when he was a young man. His first recorded writing was a short article arguing for better salaries and working conditions. Paine was also an inventor, holding a patent in Europe for the single span iron bridge. He worked with John Fitch on steam engines, and he also developed a smokeless candle. Paine published a series of pamphlets during the Revolutionary War called The American Crisis (1776). The first pamphlet begins with the famous line, "These are the times that try men's souls." It was so inspiring that George Washington had it read to all Patriot troops to boost morale after some early battle losses. Paine said, "War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end.

It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes." Paine met with Napoleon in 1800, and Napoleon supposedly told him that a gold statue should be erected to Paine in every city in the world. Today, there are only five statues worldwide dedicated to him, and one is in Paris, France. He said, "A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right." He also said, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." It's the birthday of novelist and essayist Edward Abbey , born in Indiana, Pennsylvania (1927). He's best known for his novel The Monkey Wrench Gang (1976), a best seller that follows a group of ecological radical activists and explores the idea of extremist action to protect the environment. The book made him a cult hero. He said, "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders." Abbey's father was a farmer named Paul Revere, and Abbey was raised on a farm in the Appalachian Mountains. He served in the U.S. Army in Italy in 1945 and 1946.

He moved to the Southwest in 1947 and stayed there for the rest of his life. In 1956 he began working as a park ranger and a fire lookout for the National Park Service. He worked there for fifteen years, and this led him to write about the wilderness of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. He said, "For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!" His book Desert Solitaire (1968) is about his time working as a ranger in Arches National Park, Utah. In it he argues for, among other things, a ban on cars in wilderness preserves. In a memorial piece about Abbey, Edward Hoagland says of him, "Personally, he was a labyrinth of anger and generosity, shy but arresting because of his mixture of hillbilly and cowboy qualities, and even when silent he appeared bigger than life." Abbey said, "May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds." It's the birthday of comedian and actor W.C.

Fields, (sometimes listed as April 9, 1879) born William Claude Dukenfield, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (1880). He wrote the screenplays for some of his best-known films, including The Bank Dick (1940), Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (1941), and You Can't Cheat an Honest Man (1939). It is the birthday of playwright and short story writer Anton Chekhov , born in Tagnarog, Russia (1860). His grandfather had been a serf who bought the family's freedom, and Chekhov's father owned a small grocery store. Anton was one of six children. His father insisted his sons learn Greek because there was a large Greek colony in Tagnarog, and he thought it would be good for business reasons, so Chekhov started his education in a Greek school. He loved the theatre and managed to go to plays often, even though high school students were forbidden from going. Chekhov was very good at impressions, and he put on performances for his family with help from his brothers.

Chekhov's father went to Moscow when their business failed, and Chekhov stayed behind along with one of his brothers to finish school. He began writing for newspapers and small magazines to make some money, and eventually Chekhov went on to study medicine. By the time he earned his medical degree, he was already well known as a humor contributor to popular Russian magazines such as Zritel (The Spectator) and Sputnik. He still considered himself mainly a doctor, although he practiced very little except during the cholera epidemic of 1892-93. He said, "Medicine is my lawful wife and literature my mistress. When I get tired of one, I spend the night with the other." Chekhov's early full-length plays were failures, but his play the Seagull (1896), although at first getting terrible reviews, was revived in 1898 by Stanislavsky, and that time it was a success.

Chekhov said, "One must be a god to be able to tell successes from failures without making a mistake." Chekhov's most famous plays are Uncle Vanya (1899), The Three Sisters (1901), and The Cherry Orchard (1904). All were written in the last decade of his life. Chekhov caught tuberculosis in 1897 and lived abroad, in Crimea, and finally in Yalta from 1900 on for health reasons. He said, "Doctors are just the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you, too." He also said, "When a lot of remedies are suggested for a disease, that means it can't be cured." In 1901 he married the actress Olga Knipper, who played many of the female roles in his plays after his death. It was a happy marriage, but they spent most of their time apart because she was acting in Moscow and he had to stay in Yalta because he was sick. He said, "If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry." He died in 1904 and was buried in Moscow.

The crowds that were watching the funeral procession held up all traffic. Chekhov said, "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass." Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.® « » “Writers end up writing stories—or rather, stories' shadows—and they're grateful if they can, but it is not enough. Nothing the writer can do is ever enough” —Joy Williams “I want to live other lives. I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get. Writing is my way of making other chances.” —Anne Tyler “Writing is a performance, like singing an aria or dancing a jig” —Stephen Greenblatt “All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.” —F. Scott Fitzgerald “Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up.” —John Edgar Wideman “In certain ways writing is a form of prayer.” —Denise Levertov “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.” —E.L. Doctorow “Writing is like driving at night in the fog.

You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” —E.L. Doctorow “Let's face it, writing is hell.” —William Styron “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.” —Thomas Mann “Writing is 90 percent procrastination: reading magazines, eating cereal out of the box, watching infomercials.” —Paul Rudnick “Writing is a failure. Writing is not only useless, it's spoiled paper.” —Padget Powell “Writing is very hard work and knowing what you're doing the whole time.” —Shelby Foote “I think all writing is a disease. You can't stop it.” —William Carlos Williams “Writing is like getting married.

One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.” —Iris Murdoch “The less conscious one is of being ‘a writer,’ the better the writing.” —Pico Iyer “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer “Writing is my dharma.” —Raja Rao “Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.” —Anthony Powell “I think writing is, by definition, an optimistic act.” —Michael Cunningham sponsor Marriage Quotes & Sayings (Husbands, Wives, Marriages, Divorce, Being Married, Marital, etc) What a happy and holy fashion it is that those who love one another should rest on the same pillow. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne The older I get, the less time I want to spend with the part of the human race that didn't marry me.

~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life — to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting? ~George Eliot (1819–1880), Adam Bede, 1859 Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband a month before she marries him and what she thinks of him a year afterward, and you will have the truth about him. ~H.L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques, 1916 The bonds of matrimony are like any other bonds — they mature slowly. ~Peter De Vries To keep the fire burning brightly there's one easy rule: Keep the two logs together, near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart — about a finger's breadth — for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule. ~Marnie Reed Crowell I love being married.

It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life. ~Rita Rudner Marriage, n. A community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all two. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911 Marriage is an alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut, and a woman who can't sleep with the window open. ~George Bernard Shaw Newlyweds become oldyweds, and oldyweds are the reasons that families work. ~Author Unknown Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. ~Simone Signoret Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate. ~Barnett R. Brickner A long marriage is two people trying to dance a duet and two solos at the same time. ~Anne Taylor Fleming Woke up in bed with a gorgeous woman, who I'm going to have lunch and the rest of my life with. ~Jason Barmer, pedestriansaint.com More marriages might survive if the partners realized that sometimes the better comes after the worse.

~Doug Larson One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall in again. ~Judith Viorst Never get married in the morning, because you never know who you'll meet that night. ~Paul Hornung Divorce: The past tense of marriage. ~Author Unknown Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. ~Katherine Hepburn A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 In every marriage more than a week old, there are grounds for divorce. The trick is to find, and continue to find, grounds for marriage. ~Robert Anderson, Solitaire & Double Solitaire There is no such cozy combination as man and wife. ~Menander Two things are owed to truthfulness — lasting marriages and short friendships. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com It destroys one's nerves to be amiable every day to the same human being.

~Benjamin Disraeli The sum which two married people owe to one another defies calculation. It is an infinite debt, which can only be discharged through eternity. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Consider the standard two-person married couple, and consider them, for a moment, not as a bastion of heterosexuality or a living witness to Jesus or any other such high-minded abstraction. Rather, consider them in relation to what Karl Marx would have called the "realm of commodities" and George Carlin would call "their stuff." They will possess, at least if they are affluent enough to matter to the economy at all, one VCR, one microwave oven, one electric knife sharpener, one stationary bicycle, and, of course, one house or apartment. Among other things too numerous to mention. The point is, they will share a VCR, a microwave oven, etc. This is not a matter of ideology or even personal inclination. It is practically the definition of marriage: marriage is socialism among two people. ~Barbara Ehrenreich, "Socialism In One Household," Mother Jones, January 1987 Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.

~Phyllis Diller, Phyllis Diller's Housekeeping Hints, 1966 In the opinion of the world, marriage ends all, as it does in a comedy. The truth is precisely the opposite: it begins all. ~Anne Sophie Swetchine In a time when nothing is more certain than change, the commitment of two people to one another has become difficult and rare. Yet, by its scarcity, the beauty and value of this exchange have only been enhanced. ~Robert Sexton An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit. ~Pliny the Younger, Letters If you made a list of the reasons why any couple got married, and another list of the reasons for their divorce, you'd have a hell of a lot of overlapping. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing. ~W. Somerset Maugham If two stand shoulder to shoulder against the gods, Happy together, the gods themselves are helpless Against them while they stand so.

~Maxwell Anderson After the chills and fever of love, how nice is the 98.6º of marriage! ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for granted relationship. ~Iris Murdoch English Law prohibits a man from marrying his mother-in-law. This is our idea of useless legislation. ~Author Unknown A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance and tenacity. The order varies for any given year. ~Paul Sweeney Matrimony is a process by which a grocer acquired an account the florist had. ~Francis Rodman Marriage is a book of which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose. ~Beverley Nichols Valentine's Day is when a lot of married men are reminded what a poor shot Cupid really is. ~Author Unknown Love is a flower which turns into fruit at marriage. ~Finnish Proverb A dress that zips up the back will bring a husband and wife together. ~James H. Boren All marriages are happy. It's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.

~Raymond Hull One of the good things that come of a true marriage is, that there is one face on which changes come without your seeing them; or rather there is one face which you can still see the same, through all the shadows which years have gathered upon it. ~George MacDonald As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent. ~Socrates Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century. ~Mark Twain Never feel remorse for what you have thought about your wife; she has thought much worse things about you. ~Jean Rostand, Le Mariage, 1927 Any intelligent woman who reads the marriage contract, and then goes into it, deserves all the consequences. ~Isadora Duncan When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. ~G.B.

Shaw, Getting Married, 1908 A first-rate marriage is like a first-rate hotel: expensive, but worth it. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 Our wedding was many years ago. The celebration continues to this day. ~Gene Perret Matrimony—the high sea for which no compass has yet been invented. ~Heinrich Heine, "Musical Notes from Paris," translated from German by John Snodgrass The reason for much matrimony is patrimony. ~Ogden Nash I figure that the degree of difficulty in combining two lives ranks somewhere between rerouting a hurricane and finding a parking place in downtown Manhattan. ~Claire Cloninger, "When the Glass Slipper Doesn't Fit and the Silver Spoon is in Someone Else's Mouth" A man's wife has more power over him than the state has. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals Marriage: that I call the will of two to create the one who is more than those who created it. ~Friedrich Nietzsche Three rings of marriage are the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering.

~Author Unknown Though marriage makes man and wife one flesh, it leaves 'em still two fools. ~William Congreve Marriage ceremony: an incredible metaphysical sham of watching God and the law being dragged into the affairs of your family. ~O.C. Ogilvie A man in love is incomplete until he has married. Then he's finished. ~Zsa Zsa Gabor One should never know too precisely whom one has married. ~Friedrich Nietzsche Bigamy is having one husband too many. Monogamy is the same. ~Author unknown Spouse: someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single. ~Author Unknown Like good wine, marriage gets better with age — once you learn to keep a cork in it. ~Gene Perret Marriage is a great institution, but I'm not ready for an institution. ~Mae West My wife says I never listen to her. At least I think that's what she said. ~Author Unknown I never knew what real happiness was until I got married. And by then it was too late. ~Max Kauffman Don't smother each other. No one can grow in shade.

~Leo Buscaglia Don't marry the person you think you can live with; marry only the individual you think you can't live without. ~James C. Dobson I have great hopes that we shall love each other all our lives as much as if we had never married at all. ~Lord Byron The chief reason why marriage is rarely a success is that it is contracted while the partners are insane. ~Joseph Collins We have the greatest pre-nuptial agreement in the world. It's called love. ~Gene Perret It takes a loose rein to keep a marriage tight. ~John Stevenson Mistress: something between a mister and a mattress. ~Author Unknown Mother-in-law: a woman who destroys her son-in-law's peace of mind by giving him a piece of hers. ~Author Unknown Bachelor: the only man who has never told his wife a lie. ~Author Unknown Wedding rings: the world's smallest handcuffs. ~Author Unknown How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being. ~Oscar Wilde Many a man in love with a dimple makes the mistake of marrying the whole girl.

~Stephen Leacock, Literary Lapses, 1910 The most dangerous food is wedding cake. ~American Proverb Strange to say what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition. ~Samuel Pepys Home cooking: where many a man thinks his wife is. ~Author Unknown Marriage is not a word — it is a sentence. ~Author Unknown Our marriage has always been a 50-50 proposition — with the possible exception of closet space. ~Gene Perret There is so little difference between husbands you might as well keep the first. ~Adela Rogers St. Johns When a man steals your wife, there is no better revenge than to let him keep her. ~Sacha Guitry, Elles et toi, 1948 It isn't tying himself to one woman that a man dreads when he thinks of marrying; it's separating himself from all the others. ~Helen Rowland, Violets and Vinegar Once a woman has forgiven her man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast. ~Marlene Dietrich Only choose in marriage a man whom you would choose as a friend if he were a woman.

~Joseph Joubert Never strike your wife — even with a flower. ~Hindu Proverb The difficulty with marriage is that we fall in love with a personality, but must live with a character. ~Peter Devries The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less. ~Brendan Behan So heavy is the chain of wedlock that it needs two to carry it, and sometimes three. ~Alexandre Dumas, fils Marriage is three parts love and seven parts forgiveness of sins. ~Langdon Mitchell Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect behind her. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911 What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. ~George Levinger Love-matches are made by people who are content, for a month of honey, to condemn themselves to a life of vinegar. ~Countess of Blessington Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage. ~Sydney J.

Harris That quiet mutual gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or refuge from a great weariness or a great danger. ~George Eliot The husband who doesn't tell his wife everything probably reasons that what she doesn't know won't hurt him. ~Leo J. Burke You can never be happily married to another until you get a divorce from yourself. Successful marriage demands a certain death to self. ~Jerry McCant Married life teaches one invaluable lesson: to think of things far enough ahead not to say them. ~Jefferson Machamer It's easy to understand love at first sight, but how do we explain love after two people have been looking at each other for years? ~Author Unknown Just as Amy and Jay had for decades slept nude together, inhaling each other's odors, her hands familiar with the man's body hair. Even her face creams and his night grunts would have entered into it. And shared cakes of soap and clothes closets and dinners — such a complex of intimacies. ~Saul Bellow (1915–2005), The Actual, 1997 The majority of husbands remind me of an orangutan trying to play the violin.

~Honoré de Balzac, The Physiology of Marriage You have to treat your wife like you treated her when you first met her and were trying to get her in bed. ~Alice Cooper, interview with Cal Fussman, 2008 August 2nd, for Esquire's January 2009 eighth annual Meaning of Life issue Never marry for money. Ye'll borrow it cheaper. ~Scottish Proverb Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who'll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you're in the wrong house, that's what it means. ~Henny Youngman It's a nasty divorce when they can't agree on how to divvy up the His and Hers towels. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com The problem with marriage is that it ends every night after making love, and it must be rebuilt every morning before breakfast. ~Gabriel García Márquez She cried, and the judge wiped her tears with my checkbook. ~Tommy Manville By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.

~Socrates A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers. ~Ruth Bell Graham Pity all newlyweds. She cooks something nice for him, and he brings her flowers, and they kiss and think: How easy marriage is. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 One man's folly is another man's wife. ~Helen Rowland Women hope men will change after marriage but they don't; men hope women won't change but they do. ~Bettina Arndt, Private Lives, 1986 Marriage halves our griefs, doubles our joys, and quadruples our expenses. ~English Proverb It was Mrs. Campbell, for instance, who, on a celebrated occasion, threw her companion into a flurry by describing her recent marriage as "the deep, deep peace of the double-bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue." ~Alexander Woollcott, While Rome Burns Before marriage, a girl has to make love to a man to hold him. After marriage, she has to hold him to make love to him.

~Marilyn Monroe A perfect marriage is one in which "I'm sorry" is said just often enough. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Marriage must constantly fight against a monster which devours everything: routine. ~Honoré de Balzac Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too. ~H.L. Mencken In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again.... We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring. ~Enid Bagnold, Autobiography, 1969 Many marriages are simply working partnerships between businessmen and housekeepers. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 The highest happiness on earth is marriage.

~William Lyon Phelps It is not for the fresh cheek, the full lip, the fair forehead, the parted sweeps of sunny hair, and the girlish charm of form and features, that we love the wives who have walked hand in hand with us for years, but for new graces, opening each morning like flowers in the parterre, their predecessors having accomplished their beautiful mission and gone to seed. Old love renewed again, through new motives to love, is certainly a thing lovely in itself, and desirable by all whose ambition and happiness it is to sit supreme in a single heart... ~Timothy Titcomb (Josiah Gilbert Holland), Gold-foil: Hammered from Popular Proverbs Marriage is more than four bare legs in a bed. ~Hoshang N. Akhtar A fellow ought to save a few of the long evenings he spends with his girl till after they're married. ~Kin Hubbard Two mothers-in-law. ~Lord John Russell, on being asked what he would consider a proper punishment for bigamy Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil. ~Lord Byron, Hours of Idleness A psychiatrist asks a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing.

~Joey Adams A question asked in a Surrey school exam went: "Why do cocks crow early every morning?" A twelve-year-old replied: "My dad says they have to make the most of it while the hens are asleep." ~Quoted in the Peterborough Daily Telegraph, 1983 A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married. ~H.L. Mencken Marriage is a meal where the soup is better than the dessert. ~Austin O'Malley Marriage is a feast where the grace is sometimes better than the dinner. ~Charles Caleb Colton One shouldn't be too inquisitive in life Either about God's secrets or one's wife. ~Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, translated by Nevill Coghill, 1950s Most wives think of their husbands as bumbling braggarts with whom they happen to be in love. ~Jackie Gleason For two people in a marriage to live together day after day is unquestionably the one miracle the Vatican has overlooked. ~Bill Cosby, Love and Marriage I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way.

And second, let her have it. ~Lyndon B. Johnson Marriage is a ghastly public confession of a strictly private intention. ~Ian Hay Some marriages break up, and some do not, and in our world you can usually explain the former better than the latter. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 My mother said it was simple to keep a man, you must be a maid in the living room, a cook in the kitchen and a whore in the bedroom. I said I'd hire the other two and take care of the bedroom bit. ~Jerry Hall The marriage state, with or without the affection suitable to it, is the completest image of Heaven and Hell we are capable of receiving in this life. ~Richard Steele, The Spectator Adultery is the application of democracy to love. ~Henry Louis Mencken, "Sententiae," A Book of Burlesques, 1920 A dog is much like a married man, obeying his master's voice for the sake of his master's touch. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com A happy marriage is a long conversation which always seems too short.

~Andre Maurois Marriage: A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and spy on each other for ninety-nine years, or until death do them join. ~Elbert Hubbard In the early years, you fight because you don't understand each other. In the later years, you fight because you do. ~Joan Didion It is easy to mistake being ready for a wedding with being ready for marriage. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com Marriage isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Let me tell you, honestly. Marriage is probably the chief cause of divorce. ~Larry Gelbart, M*A*S*H, "Bulletin Board," original airdate 14 January 1975, spoken by the character Frank Burns When a girl marries she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one. ~Helen Rowland In the long run wives are to be paid in a peculiar coin — consideration for their feelings. As it usually turns out this is an enormous, unthinkable inflation few men will remit, or if they will, only with a sense of being overcharged.

~Elizabeth Hardwick, Seduction and Betrayal, 1974 Before marriage, a man declares that he would lay down his life to serve you; after marriage, he won't even lay down his newspaper to talk to you. ~Helen Rowland Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left. ~Jean Kerr, Mary, Mary, 1960 Marriage changes passion — suddenly you're in bed with a relative. ~Author Unknown It is not marriage that fails; it is people that fail. All that marriage does is to show people up. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick A wedding is just like a funeral except that you get to smell your own flowers. ~Grace Hansen The view that a peptic ulcer may be the hole in a man's stomach through which he crawls to escape from his wife has fairly wide acceptance. ~John Allan Dalrymple Anderson I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out. ~Lee Grant Often the difference between a successful marriage and a mediocre one consists of leaving about three or four things a day unsaid.

~Harlan Miller The man who never in his life Has washed the dishes with his wife Or polished up the silver plate - He still is largely celibate. ~Christopher Morley, Washing the Dishes Marry someone who looks sexy while disappointed. ~"Phil's-osophy" by Phil Dunphy (Christopher Lloyd, Steven Levitan, and Dan O'Shannon, Modern Family, "Schooled," original airdate 2012 Oct 10) A love that lasts for twenty years may be better than love, but it isn't love. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 God created sex. Priests created marriage. ~Voltaire To avoid mistakes and regrets, always consult your wife before engaging in a flirtation. ~E.W. Howe The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret. ~Henny Youngman Marriage is a mistake every man should make. ~George Jessel I guess walking slow getting married is because it gives you time to maybe change your mind. ~Virginia Cary Hudson A husband is what is left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted. ~Helen Rowland My husband and I divorced over religious differences.

He thought he was God, and I didn't. ~Author Unknown Marriage is the alliance of two people, one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgets them. ~Ogden Nash One thing you learn in a long marriage is how many sneezes to wait before saying, "Bless you." ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com Husbands are like fires. They go out when unattended. ~Zsa Zsa Gabor The concern that some women show at the absence of their husbands, does not arise from their not seeing them and being with them, but from their apprehension that their husbands are enjoying pleasures in which they do not participate, and which, from their being at a distance, they have not the power of interrupting. ~Michel de Montaigne But married once, a man is stak'd or pown'd, and cannot graze beyond his own hedge. ~Philip Massinger, Fatal Dowry, 1632 Marriage is the only war in which you sleep with the enemy. ~François VI de la Rochefoucault Why do married men gain weight while bachelors don't?

Bachelors go to the refrigerator, see nothing they want, then go to bed. Married guys go to the bed, see nothing they want, then go to the refrigerator. ~Author Unknown I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night. ~Marie Corelli Women seem to be all right on bargains till it comes to picking out a husband. ~Kin Hubbard After a few years of marriage, a man can look right at a woman without seeing her — and a woman can see right through a man without looking at him. ~Helen Rowland Why get married? For human beings, marriage is such an unnatural state. If you want monogamy, it has been said, you should marry a swan. ~Quentin Crisp, "The Art of Celibacy" Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses.

~Francis Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life," Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral, 1625 Marriage: A word which should be pronounced "mirage." ~Herbert Spencer A man without a wife is like a vase without flowers. ~African Proverb Like my vodka, my marriage is on the rocks. ~Craig D. Slovak A woman ought to look up to her husband, if only a half-inch. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 A woman who loves her husband is merely paying her bills. A woman who loves her lover gives alms to the poor. ~Paul-Jean Toulet Love requires a willingness to die; marriage, a willingness to live. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 Give up all hope of peace so long as your mother-in-law is alive. ~Juvenal, Satires We were happily married for eight months. Unfortunately, we were married for four and a half years. ~Nick Faldo Men never know how tired they are till their wives sit them down for a nice long talk.

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 The reason they're called the opposite sex is because every time you think you have your wife fooled — it's just the opposite! ~Walter Winchell By the time you're his Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying. ~Dorothy Parker Originally marriage meant the sale of a woman by one man to another; now most women sell themselves though they have no intention of delivering the goods listed in the bill of sale. ~Robert Graves If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse — as a man shoots himself. ~H.L. Mencken [M]en are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. ~William Shakespeare, As You Like It [IV, 1, Rosalind] My wife tells me she doesn't care what I do when I'm away, as long as I'm not enjoying it.

~Lee Trevino To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up. ~Ogden Nash "What's for dinner?" is the only question many husbands ask their wives, and the only one to which they care about the answer. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 Most marriages can survive "better or worse." The tester is all the years of "exactly the same." ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com Hubert Humphrey talks so fast that listening to him is like trying to read Playboy magazine with your wife turning the pages. ~Barry Goldwater People do not marry people, not real ones anyway; they marry what they think the person is; they marry illusions and images. The exciting adventure of marriage is finding out who the partner really is. ~James L. Framo, "Explorations in Marital & Family Therapy" Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later; for another thing, they die earlier. ~H.L.

Mencken I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance, A church filled with family and friends. I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for, He said one that would make me his wife. ~Author Unknown No man expects a great deal from marriage. He is quite satisfied if his wife is a good cook, a good valet, an attentive audience, and a patient nurse. ~Author Unknown Think not because you are now wed That all your courtship's at an end. ~Antonio Hurtado de Mendoza Alimony is like buying oats for a dead horse. ~Arthur Baer I came from a big family. As a matter of fact, I never got to sleep alone until I was married. ~Lewis Grizzard There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage. ~Martin Luther Alimony — The ransom that the happy pay to the devil. ~H.L. Mencken, "Sententiae," A Book of Burlesques, 1920 If marriage were outlawed, only outlaws would have in-laws. ~Author Unknown As a general guideline, never marry anyone that you can't picture helping you go to the bathroom.

~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com Getting divorced just because you don't love a man is almost as silly as getting married just because you do. ~Zsa Zsa Gabor I've sometimes thought of marrying, and then I've thought again. ~Noel Coward, 1956 Thus Dante's motto over Inferno applies with equal force to marriage: "Ye who enter here leave all hope behind." ~Emma Goldman, Marriage and Love Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt. ~Edna Ferber, Show Boat, 1926 "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence? ~Author Unknown Affairs are just as disillusioning as marriage, and much less restful.

~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966 Marriage is a lottery in which men stake their liberty and women their happiness. ~Virginie des Rieux, Epigrams Wedlock is a padlock. ~John Ray, English Proverbs ...setting aside popular twaddle on the eternal sanctity of the marriage-tie and all that... ~John Hill, The Waters of Marah, 1883 The marriage of convenience has this to recommend it: we are better judges of convenience than we are of love. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight. ~Samuel Lichtenberg The best way to remember your wife's birthday is to forget it once. ~H.V. Prochnow Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole. ~John Mortimer, The Trials of Rumpole One of the best things about marriage is that it gets young people to bed at a decent hour. ~M.M. Musselman Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you lose interest.

~Irwin Corey If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married. ~Katharine Houghton Hepburn The total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution. ~Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals Love, the strongest and deepest element in all life, the harbinger of hope, of joy, of ecstasy; love, the defier of laws, of all conventions; love, the freest, the most powerful molder of human destiny; how can such an all-compelling force be synonymous with that poor little State- and church-begotten weed, marriage? ~Emma Goldman, Marriage and Love What we love about love is the fever, which marriage puts to bed and cures. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960 Between a man and his wife nothing ought to rule but love. ~William Penn On rare occasions one does hear of a miraculous case of a married couple falling in love after marriage, but on close examination it will be found that it is a mere adjustment to the inevitable.

~Emma Goldman, Marriage and Love Marriage is a wonderful invention: then again, so is a bicycle repair kit. ~Billy Connolly Marriage is nature's way of ensuring that a woman picks up some mothering experience before she has her first child. ~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com Marriage is good for those who are afraid to sleep alone at night. ~St. Jerome, Attack on Jovinian [M]y mother once told me that if a married couple puts a penny in a pot for every time they make love in the first year, and takes a penny out every time after that, they'll never get all the pennies out of the pot. ~Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City, 1978 The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a little more jealous. ~H.L. Mencken A great poet has seldom sung of lawfully wedded happiness, but of free and secret love; and in this respect, too the time is coming when there will no longer be one standard of morality for poetry and another for life.

To anyone tender of conscience, the ties formed by a free connection are stronger than the legal ones. ~Ellen Key, quoted by Sprading in Liberty and the Great Libertarians Any married man should forget his mistakes — no use two people remembering the same thing. ~Duane Dewel Men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage — they've experienced pain and bought jewelry. ~Rita Rudner He was doubtless an understanding Fellow that said, there was no happy Marriage but betwixt a blind Wife and a deaf Husband. ~Michel de Montaigne, "Upon Some Verses of Virgil" Come, let's be a comfortable couple and take care of each other! How glad we shall be, that we have somebody we are fond of always, to talk to and sit with. ~Charles Dickens Getting married is a lot like getting into a tub of hot water. After you get used to it, it ain't so hot. ~Minnie Pearl People make mistakes, — that's why God invented divorce. ~Mistresses, "Lean In" [S4, E5, 2016], written by Rina Mimoun Love is grand; divorce a hundred grand.

~Author unknown It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to be witty every day than to say pretty things from time to time. ~Balzac, Physiologie du mariage, 1829 A single man has not nearly the value he would have in a state of union. He is an incomplete animal. He resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors. ~Benjamin Franklin And when will there be an end of marrying? I suppose, when there is an end of living! ~Tertullian The surest way to be alone is to get married. ~Gloria Steinem [W]hen you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible. ~Nora Ephron, When Harry Met Sally It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married. ~Robert Frost I never even believed in divorce until after I got married. ~Diane Ford As a man, I've learned that there is nothing easier in married life than pleasing your wife with your cooking.

~Robert Brault, rbrault.blogspot.com Someone once asked me why women don't gamble as much as men do, and I gave the common-sensical reply that we don't have as much money. That was a true but incomplete answer. In fact, women's total instinct for gambling is satisfied by marriage. ~Gloria Steinem Courtship to marriage is as a very witty prologue to a very dull play. ~William Congreve, The Old Bachelor, 1693 If you want to read about love and marriage, you've got to buy two separate books. ~Alan King They dream in courtship, but in wedlock wake. ~Alexander Pope, The Wife of Bath, 1713 Marriage is like a phone call in the night: first the ring, and then you wake up. ~Evelyn Hendrickson When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels desert heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy. ~The Brahma Sutras Love is one long sweet dream, and marriage is the alarm clock. ~Author Unknown If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.

~Anton Chekhov The music at a marriage procession always reminds me of the music of soldiers entering on a battle. ~Heinrich Heine, "Thoughts and Fancies," translated from German by John Snodgrass The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing — and then marry him. ~Cher If you haven't seen your wife smile at a traffic cop, you haven't seen her smile her prettiest. ~Kin Hubbard Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men, 1850 When a man opens the car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife. ~Prince Philip You should never kiss a girl unless you have enough bucks to buy her a big ring and her own VCR, 'cause she'll want to have videos of the wedding. ~Attributed to a 10-year-old named Jim It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I'm just a kid. I don't need that kind of trouble.

~Attributed to a 7-year-old named Kenny, when asked if it's better to be single or married Marriage is a bribe to make the housekeeper think she's a householder. ~Thornton Wilder No married man is genuinely happy if he has to drink worse whisky than he used to drink when he was single. ~H.L. Mencken Marriage, a market which has nothing free but the entrance. ~Michel de Montaigne I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars and would sign over half of it to me before the marriage, and guarantee he'd be dead within the year. ~Bette Davis Men should keep their eyes wide open before marriage, and half-shut afterwards. ~Madeleine de Scudery Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile on it. ~Josh Billings Politics doesn't make strange bedfellows — marriage does. ~Groucho Marx Why does a woman work ten years to change a man's habits and then complain that he's not the man she married? ~Barbra Streisand No man is regular in his attendance at the House of Commons until he is married.

~Benjamin Disraeli In olden times sacrifices were made at the altar, a custom which is still continued. ~Helen Rowland, Reflections of a Bachelor Girl, 1909 He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of. ~Mae West The concept of two people living together for 25 years without a serious dispute suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep. ~A.P. Herbert Never get married in college; it's hard to get a start if a prospective employer finds you've already made one mistake. ~Elbert Hubbard Marriage means commitment. Of course, so does insanity. ~Author unknown Love: A temporary insanity curable by marriage. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary The Delights of Wisdom concerning Conjugial Love: After Which Follow the Pleasures of Insanity... ~Emanuel Swedenborg, title of 1768 book, translated from the Latin [Just a little truncated silliness. Please note this is not used as intended, and I chopped off the end of the title ("concerning scortatory love"). And 'conjugial' means marriage. —tεᖇᖇ¡·g]

Question: Which Russian author first said or wrote, "If you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry"?
Answer: ANTON CHEKHOV